Slow News Day: Two Headed Turtle, Walking Strategies, a Working Clown

The New York Daily News finds a two-headed turtle in Kensington, Brooklyn. Originally a native of Florida, the bicephalic wonder was faring poorly and its owner turned it over to Brooklyn's Sean Casey Animal Rescue for urgent care. Casey recently brought the restored turtle to his pet shop on East Third Street, where it serves as a "mascot" and, evidently, a public relations vehicle.

Yesterday's falling glass at Times Square provides a topical hook for the New York Times' examination of the "Strategies and Attitudes of Walkers in New York" in this era of frequent construction mishaps. One citizen says "I keep looking up"; another doesn't want to walk under scaffolding but "sometimes you can’t avoid it because otherwise you walk into the street." Some strategies. The obligatory expert witness, "director of the Skyscraper Museum in Manhattan," recalls the days when ironworkers merrily tossed "red-hot rivets" far above milling crowds. The message, we suppose, is that there's not much point worrying about it.

Here's a possible career for you, offered in the @work section of the New York Post: children's clown. Tom Smith, a young-looking 45 years old, "performs about a dozen times a week, throughout the five boroughs and in Connecticut, Westchester and Long Island." He first entered the profession because he wasn't making a living as a musician. "Sometimes I get yelled at by teenagers," says Smith, "but it doesn't bother me." And why should it? He has lots of good memories, like the time he performed at a block party sponsored by the Savage Skulls motorcycle gang, and can afford to live on Riverside Drive and 135th, though the Post does not mention whether his wife or either of his two children contribute to the family income.